Anti-buzz Law Elaborated

Not so surprisingly, there is actually opposition to the law that would make buzzing illegal.

That’s right, there are assholes out there who think that the law should chime in on harassing cyclists and to say that it’s OK.

Yes, I try to be positive, but if you harass someone smaller or weaker than you then you are an asshole and a bully. I still love, you, but hey, you suck. 🙂

Here are some organizations who oppose the three foot passing law:

Number one is the Quisling organization of CABO (California Association of Bicycling Organizations):

Here’s what they claim to want:

“…bicyclists are hemmed in by imprecise special laws that confuse motorists, police, courts, and bicyclists themselves as to their rights, responsibilities, and proper behavior. These inconsistencies pose a formidable obstacle to the encouragement and expansion of a socially advantageous mode of transportation. Nonetheless, bicycle issues have rarely been directly addressed in case law and have received meager attention in the legal literature.”

From their legal page just in case you think I’m taking them out of context.

This is the same Benedict Arnold that opposed research on bicycle boxes. Definitely a bunch of motorists first masquerading as cycle advocates.

Secondly is the quasi-government organization of the AAA. I say quasi-government because the government shares your private information with them. That is, if you get a license, don’t be surprised if you get junk mail from the AAA. I’m really not a lawyer, but I don’t think that any old organization can get a direct feed into a government database.

If someone knows more, please enlighten me. I’m super-curious on how they got my information. Not that I really care, too much about privacy, but I am a bit creeped out because I feel that this is unfair to other organizations who want to data mine the DMV. Imagine what we’d find!

‘AAA – The Automobile Club of Southern California and AAA Northern California oppose SB910, claiming the proposed law “replaces reasonableness and judgment with a fixed and arbitrary ‘safe distance’.” ‘

Which is so silly because I wonder how buzzing someone is reasonable and a safe judgment. In fact, I think that three feet is minimum.

Three feet is a small child. If you can imagine a small and very athletic child holding on to your handle bars and extending her little legs into traffic, if the bottom of their foot bumps the side mirror of the car, that’s three feet. For a huge truck, that’s really scary.

The problem is that there is no way to enforce this now which is why the law is created. I’m sure if there is an extreme imaginary case why someone really, really needs to buzz a cyclist, a court can take that into account.

‘AAA especially dislikes the 15 MPH passing provision, saying, “Drivers currently are not required to estimate the speed of other moving objects around them, and to precisely calculate their speed in relation to that moving object.” ‘

If these people were around when we discovered fire, we’d still be eating raw meat. No, we wouldn’t. We’d still be in trees because coming out of trees, hunting, and using fire to cook were not “currently around” when we first started to do them. 🙂

I am not a fan of the “broken window” theory, but in this case, tracking down drivers who drive erratically, including buzzing people can prevent other crimes:

“On 06/11/11 at 0127 hours Officer Jillard and Officer Cummings stopped a white Dodge Ram truck for driving erratically. When the officers tried to conduct standardized field sobriety tests the driver advised
the officers he had a loaded .45 caliber pistol in the car. The pistol and two canisters of bear repellent, yes, bear repellent were recovered from the truck. The driver was arrested for concealed carry of a loaded pistol and was given accommodations at San Diego County Jail.”

In San Diego, you can report erratic drivers, including those who buzz you (just say they are driving erratically, there are children in a car somewhere, and NEVER say you are riding a bicycle because they won’t come then).